If your new to the game, Synthweaving is the process of fabricating synthetic materials out of crystals, various chemicals and artifact fragments to construct armor for Force users. Vendors provide premade solutions, suspensions and composites that are used during the Synthweaving process. Synthweavers can reverse engineer their crafted armor and possibly discover new ways to improve armor creating.

What do you think? Do you like the sets? Were you disappointed? Will you be saving up for a specific set in particular? Already got a set and have screenshots of it? We want to see! Post us a link to your images in the comments.

David Hunt answers a ton of questions regarding the new agument system in a recent forum post. Really like that I can R/E green items for the augment kit pieces.

to summarize the important stuff:

• You can add an augment slot to any equip-able green item.
• Augments require a minimum Augment Slot level. There are 6 tiers. You can add any level Slot to any level item.
• You get the materials at a constant rate from RE’ing equippable items: 10 items -> 1 augment kit. The material tier corresponds to the tier of the gear RE’d.
• Extraction costs are reduced 30%.
• Adding an augment slot using a kit costs between 4.5k – 50k depending on the tier.

Other information:

• Augment kits can be used by anyone. They are made by Armstechs, armortechs, and synthweavers.

Now to find the cheapest one to do and stock up on mats. Check out the full Q and A at the official forums, or below if you don’t want to go to the forums

The Spy Game – Coming to a galaxy near you!

When SWTOR launched it seemed like the Imperial Agent class was fairly low on the radar for players primarily due to the fact that it’s a unique class with somewhat challenging mechanics and a lack of a well known iconic Star Wars character. The absence of any Qui Gons, Jango Fetts or Han Solos for us to draw inspiration from as far as the six Star Wars films are concerned meant that a lot of people took a pass on our favorite class right out of the launch gate.

As the game has matured however, and word of the excellent IA class story and abilities have spread it seems like I’m seeing a lot more Snipers and Operatives around these days. This has recently left me wondering how many of you play this class as your main and how many of you play it as an alt. Almost six months in I have several alts from different classes but my Sniper is still my favorite.

Going it Alone

Have you seen this guy in your SWTOR?

Playing solo as an Agent feels very appropriate at times, and to be honest is a lot of fun. All through the leveling process and class story you really get a “James Bondian” sense of being on your own and needing to make do with what resources you have at hand in your bag of tricks. The universe feels like a dangerous place and while things were a bit challenging at times I never felt like the odds were insurmountable.

While leveling solo I also enjoyed the story opportunities that presented you with a choice of being a loyal Imperial drone or thinking outside the box for a creative solution and even the occasional “Sure I’ll do it if the price is right” decision.

My biggest complaint while leveling the Imperial Agent was that at times I felt “slow” compared to other classes primarily due to the fact that as a pure Marksman Sniper you can’t just go blindly charging in to a fight. Lots of encounters required careful observation of the environment and enemies and planning as to how I was going to prioritize target selection and management before starting a fight. At higher levels fights were challenging and occasionally required some trial and error learning but in retrospect I really enjoyed the hell out of those encounters.

I’m currently leveling a Bounty Hunter alt and it really feels like BH is the “easy button” class to level. Most times I can just charge in to the fray in a storm of mayhem and fire and come out practically unscathed. When summoned to help a guildie defeat Borga out at the Lady of Pains fortress on Tatooine I actually found myself yelling “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED” immediately after pounding him into sludgy bits. It’s a very visceral and fun way to play but the class feels very forgiving and not nearly as challenging. The fact that you get your healer companion before you get off of your starting planet makes this class even more forgiving and the Agent is the opposite. You don’t see your healer companion until you’re pretty far in to your class quest and I feel like this forces you to become a better player right out of the gate. Once Doctor Lokin joins your team, the leveling difficulty curve is significantly easier.

Teaming up

Which one of these guys are you?

As much fun as soling this class is, playing as part of a coordinated team is really where the Imperial Agent comes in to his or her own. Being a team player requires coordination and communication and everyone needs to know what their role is. Being a Marksman Sniper means your role is pretty well defined.

As a Sniper I love hearing the words “hey we need more DPS can you give us a hand”? Your role as a support class means that many times you get to avoid the worst damage while dishing out a steady stream of hurt in support of the main tank, protecting other support classes like healers or picking off the stragglers depending on the encounter. It’s a versatile class with a lot of utility and flexibility.

A well geared Sniper is capable of dealing insane burst damage or a healthy amount of sustained damage once again demonstrating his adaptability for each situation. Your ability to use environmental objects to reduce your incoming damage helps to make up for being limited to medium armor and can make the game tactically interesting as you survey the battlefield and react to the situation, taking advantage of cover when you need to fire and move in a fluid situation. This combined with the fact that there seems to be a shortage of ranged DPS most of the time ensures that if I’m looking for work it’s almost always available. This absolutely fits in perfectly with where your class story ends up once you’ve reached level 50 and entered the interlude stage.

Everyone has a different play style, fortunately the Imperial Agent is a good choice for either preference. What’s your preferred play style? Are you a Lone Ranger or a Team Player? Let us know in the comment section below!

Tip ‘O the week: When you’re working with a group, keep an eye on your healer. If he goes under everyone else probably will too. If he starts drawing fire then it’s time for you to step in and draw the attackers off. It’s far easier for your healer to keep you and the tank up than it is to also worry about keeping himself up. This is even more relevant since the change that restricts you to consuming one health pack per encounter. Use situational awareness and the environment to take advantage of the AOE heals as much as possible. As a Sniper it’s sometimes easy to get yourself out of the healing area due to you having the longest range of anyone in the encounter. Don’t get tunnel vision!

Imperial Agent Weekly is an ongoing column for aspiring IA’s everywhere. For players who are just getting started with the Imperial Agent, check out our Newbie Guide here.

You will have an actual purpose…soon.

With every major new feature announced for Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will of course have a few questions. Today, BioWare’s David Hunt has answered over a dozen questions about adding augment slots to gear with Game Update 1.3. I’ve included the conversation below, but if you still have questions, head over to the official forums and ask away.

Pic Source

Furious Angels

Since regrettably Adad no longer plays Star Wars: The Old Republic I was able to get Tbone, the guild leader of Furious Angels to answer a few questions on his behalf.

What was the purpose of the video?

We’ve always made videos to promote the game and the guild. This particular video was originally made for one of the Orders, which is what we call smaller sub-divisions of our guild. We liked it so much that we decided to use it as our main recruitment video.

Have you made music or guild videos in the past?

Yes, if you check our YouTube profile you’ll see that we made full-fledged movies back when we played The Matrix Online. They had plots, voice acting, and a dramatic final act!

Which tools did you use?

I use FRAPS and Adobe Premiere Pro. Adad, the creator of this particular video, prefers Final Cut I believe.

Where is the footage from?

We made this video before the game released, so it is from the “Hope” CGI trailer. We also used audio from Episode I that talks about Angels. We wanted to show beauty and gracefulness but immense power as well. Satele using her acrobats to slice through enemies seemed like a perfect example of this.

Music: Title/artist? Why did you pick this particular music?

John Murphy – The Last Message (from the soundtrack to Sunshine). We’re always looking for new audio for our websites and videos. I forget who originally pointed out this track, but it instantly clicked with us. Just epic! We use it as background audio on our site as well.

Let’s have a look at the video then:

Any parts in particular you would like to draw attention to?

The video is simple and clean. Short and sweet. We have a lot more involved projects, but in terms of grabbing your attention quick and leaving you wanting to know more, I think it’s effective.

Did you get a lot of feedback from within the guild?

This was more of a solo project. We’re in the works of making a new recruitment video using in-game footage as well as our first movie (we’ve been waiting for the high-res textures!). Those projects will be a huge collaboration involving the entire guild.

Any advice you would give to guilds making their first video?

Know what your guild is thematically. Making a generic SWTOR advertisement with your guild name attached to it is fine, but if you want to make something unique that feels inspired, think of how your guild operates first (happy-go-lucky? militaristic? mysterious? sociable? black ops?) and go from there.

Sound advice! Thank you for that and for sharing so much background on the project. I think it’s a very good example of ‘less is more’ and worth bearing in mind for future promotional projects for guilds.

~~~

If you have an awesome guild video you would like to share with us, send me an email to kristen @ torwars DOT com, mark it ‘Holovid Heroes – YOUR GUILD‘, tell me why you think it should be shown here on TORWars and don’t forget to give me a link to your video!

With deadly hazards, catwalks and pits, an Inquisitor is right at home.

Resolve bars go over heads, one way or another.

When you are CC’d by an enemy, you can break out of that by using the skill Unbreakable Will.  While the tooltip for the skill states that it removes all movement-imparing effects, will you find skills that continue to root you to the ground even if you use Unbreakable Will to remove them.  You’ll want to save this CC break for those key moments when you absolutely need to break out of CC to grab the ball, throw the ball, or run over a fire-pit.

It’s important to remember that your CC abilities increase the enemy’s resolve bar.  Increasing your enemy’s resolve to full near your goal can help your enemy score a huttdown.  Whirlwind should not be used anywhere near your goal line because they increase the enemy’s resolve without helping you kill or push back the enemy.

In our playbook, we must differentiate between Sorcerers and Assassins.  The two advanced classes have very different roles in the match.  Sorcerers are seen as being the best advanced class in the game for Huttball due to their highlyvisible mobility and utility.  Assassins on the other hand must be deceptive and creative with their use of stealth in order to have a strong influence on the outcome of the game.

Getting to the ball before the enemy can change the momentum of a match

The Sorc Ball Rush

Huttball is a very mobile sport.  Sorcerers have the capability to use Force Speed to get to a good position faster than anyone else.  Force Speed can be used as an opener to be the first to get the ball at the start of the match.  Use Numlock to make your character auto-run towards the force-field at the start of the match so that you don’t loose any time at the start.  Once your feet reach the base of the ramp, use your Force Speed.  If you time it right, the Force Speed’s boost will remain in effect just after you run off the edge of the platform and continue to boost your speed after it’s duration has ended during your  fall to the next platform.

You can then continue running, and jump at the edge of the acid pit.  If you notice you are going to land in the acid pit, quickly tap space bar again as you are landing to keep your momentum more or less constant.  If you are too slow, your movement speed will be reduced by the acid.  At this point, you will likely see another Sorcerer on the other side of the arena.  Electrocute can be used while running towards the ball to stall the competition.

Once you actually have the ball, run the opposite direction, pass, or have another Sorcerer pull you immediately.  Sorcerer’s are great at getting the ball, but they are far to fragile to march face-first into a full team charging out of their gate.  Expect the enemy to try to pull you, stun you and take the ball from you before you have a chance to pass.

For teams that control the middle in Huttball, the Assassin shines as a safe tank that can dependably spike the ball when in danger.

Spiking the ball is a concept not every Huttball player understands.  If you spike the ball it means you have control of the ball but the team would be better off if it returned to center.  For example, imagine your team just barely stopped the enemy on the last fire-pit or near the goal.  The ball will transfer to the nearest friendly player.  It may be you, young Assassin, and you may be near dead.  Non-stealth classes in the same situation are forced to try and find an empty patch of ground to toss the ball into to get it back to center, but in doing so they risk throwing an interception.  Rather than risk an interception or getting chain-stunned and killed off by some enemy jumping out of stealth, you can jump into stealth yourself to automatically spike the ball back to center.

The Sorc Extricate

An incredibly useful skill in Huttball is the Sorcerer’s Extrication.  Extrication will pull a friendly target to you, whoever they are.  Extrication is a great way to instantly move the ball  30 meters per pull.  A Sorcerer can position themselves strategically past fire-pits or on higher ground and pull the ball carrier out of harm’s way.  After running in a hutt-down, Sorcs can run back up to the top of the ramp and wait to see if a new ball carrier needs a quick extrication to get past both fire pits.  Multiple Sorcs can chain extrications together to effectively pass the ball carrier 30 meters at a time.

The Assassin Trap and Grab

For teams that do not control the center, the Assassin offers a sneaky alternative way to get the ball.  Rather than attempting to fight and obtain the ball through legitimate means, the Assassin can hide nearby and wait until they anticipate the ball is about to return to middle.  If the guard is not in combat, they can then Mind Trap an enemy guarding the middle and leap out of stealth to grab the ball first.  Assassins are also great at popping out of stealth at just the right moment to grab an interception.

The Sorc Force Leap

After you’ve passed the first fire trap on the upper most catwalk, you’ll come to a point where you must either drop down to a lower catwalk and pass a fire trap there, or you must travel over a different fire trap and run down the central ramp to reach the enemy goal.  At this point, a Sorc with good timing can bypass the final set of fire traps by force running towards the goal and directing their jump to land just past the lower fire pit.  Your Force Speed will continue to buff your mid-air speed so long as it was still in effect when you began your jump.

Force-run-jump from the top catwalk lets you skip one fire-pit

The Suicide Pull

The Force Pull ability can be used to pull ball carriers or enemy healers right into fire and acid pits.  The Assassin will die, but they will die knowing they are taking the ball carrier or their healer with them.  This is especially nice when you’re low on health and know you’re about to go down.

Killing your enemy by killing yourself seems like a Sith thing to do

The Catwalk Overload

Not every class has a knockback ability that hits in every direction no matter who you are targeting.  Inquisitors can carefully time their overload ability to knock both a ball carrier and their entourage into the pit.  Force Speed or Stealth can be used to get in position before the enemy realizes you’re about to send them flying in different directions.  Overload should be saved for crucial defenses and offenses when you can knock people into the pit or in rare situations to knock a low-health ball carrier back into the fire hazard.

Fire by Electrocution

Inquisitors can use Electrocute to stun their enemy for a couple seconds.  One of the best times to use Electrocute is when your enemy is attempting to cross over a hazard like a fire pit.  If you’ve attempted to walk the ball over a fire pit without a full resolve bar, you’ve likely experienced how troublesome this tactic can prove.  The strongest of players can survive a few seconds in the fire while stunned so you’ll want to use the opportunity to unleash maximum firepower in addition to the damage the fire pit does.

Beyond this, however, Stephen also hinted that one of these features may become available “before 1.3″ goes live. What could that mean? Most likely, since the group finder is the central feature of 1.3, this means that server transfers may be implemented somewhat sooner than we’ve previously thought.

Both of these developments are certainly very good news for SWTOR fans everywhere. You can read the original exchange of Tweets on ths subject right here.

Of course, we’d love to hear your thoughts on all this! Leave us a comment, below, and share your musings and insights!

By Ghoztt

You may have heard the term ‘min-max’ thrown around your ops group and perhaps you were afraid to ask what that meant.  Essentially, it’s the gamer term of optimizing your character to eek out every single drop of performance you can for your class role.  This endeavor can be quite costly in both time and credits but, for those who love to crunch numbers and maximize a character’s potential, it is a passion.

Out with the new and in with the old

I recommend saving your older tier gear in order to rip out any mods that you can use to min-max.  You would think that upgraded gear means upgraded stats but that isn’t always the case.  Take a look at the example below.  You’ll notice that the Armoring and Mod in the boots are an upgrade but the enhancement for the Rakata piece has 40 End, 51 Acc, and 20 Defense while the Columi has 38 End, 48 Shield, and 19 Defense.  For my offspec tank set, I don’t want the accuracy so changing out the enhancement will allow me to gain 48 Shield while only losing 2 Endurance and 1 Defense.  Take a look across all of your gear and see what other pieces you can use this method with.  Remember that the Mod and Enhancement modifications can be moved from boots to legs to chest, wherever you want to put it.  The Armoring, however, is locked to the particular slot that it came out of.

Augment where you can

If you are an armortech or synthweaver, you are capable of crafting your own Rakata bracers and waist.  Keep making them and eventually you’ll get a critical success which will grant an augment slot.  Hopefully, you won’t have to go through too many but min-maxing can get pretty pricey on mats.  Those of you who don’t carry these professions can still take advantage.  Start shopping around with your friends, guild mates and the GTN for the orange custom gear that have augment slots on them.  If you want to keep your tier set bonus, then you can replace one piece.  However, if the set bonus for your class isn’t worth keeping, then replace as many as you like.  You will gain up to five additional augments slots in addition to the ability to customize your look.

Custom Augmented Chest with Rakata Mods moved over

PS: Don’t forget you can (and should) do this for your weapons as well.

Other Orangey Gear

This next bit of customization is a little more troublesome to do, but it may be worth the time, effort and expense if the gains are significant enough.  If you are fortunate enough to get your hands on an orange belt (excluding light armor which can be easily bought from the Fleet Comm vendor), then you’ll also need to start shopping for Armoring and Mods that are rank 25.  Unfortunately, these mods only drop in hard mode and higher operations so finding them on the GTN will be hit or miss depending on your server’s population and progression.  The gains vary from class to class, but as you can see in the example below, it can be a decent upgrade over the Rakata Belt.  This little trick can also be done with the orange bracers you buy from the Legacy Vendor, but once again the gains will vary from class to class.

Only the beginning

This is only the tip of the iceberg of what is a constant process.  Players have spent hundreds of thousands of credits just to swap out mods in order to gain a marginal increase in their stats.  I’ve heard of players who will level their armortech/synthweaving to max in order to get the augmented items only to drop it and re-level biochem to get the items in that profession.  There are even some players who will reverse engineer their newly purchased Black Hole gear in hopes of learning the schematic in order to craft the augmented version.  The possibilities are only limited to your budget and time constraints, so get out there and start modding!

Ready check done? Pulling in 3… 2… 1…

By Ghoztt

You may have heard the term ‘min-max’ thrown around your ops group and perhaps you were afraid to ask what that meant.  Essentially, it’s the gamer term of optimizing your character to eek out every single drop of performance you can for your class role.  This endeavor can be quite costly in both time and credits but, for those who love to crunch numbers and maximize a character’s potential, it is a passion.

Out with the new and in with the old

I recommend saving your older tier gear in order to rip out any mods that you can use to min-max.  You would think that upgraded gear means upgraded stats but that isn’t always the case.  Take a look at the example below.  You’ll notice that the Armoring and Mod in the boots are an upgrade but the enhancement for the Rakata piece has 40 End, 51 Acc, and 20 Defense while the Columi has 38 End, 48 Shield, and 19 Defense.  For my offspec tank set, I don’t want the accuracy so changing out the enhancement will allow me to gain 48 Shield while only losing 2 Endurance and 1 Defense.  Take a look across all of your gear and see what other pieces you can use this method with.  Remember that the Mod and Enhancement modifications can be moved from boots to legs to chest, wherever you want to put it.  The Armoring, however, is locked to the particular slot that it came out of.

Augment where you can

If you are an armortech or synthweaver, you are capable of crafting your own Rakata bracers and waist.  Keep making them and eventually you’ll get a critical success which will grant an augment slot.  Hopefully, you won’t have to go through too many but min-maxing can get pretty pricey on mats.  Those of you who don’t carry these professions can still take advantage.  Start shopping around with your friends, guild mates and the GTN for the orange custom gear that have augment slots on them.  If you want to keep your tier set bonus, then you can replace one piece.  However, if the set bonus for your class isn’t worth keeping, then replace as many as you like.  You will gain up to five additional augments slots in addition to the ability to customize your look.

Custom Augmented Chest with Rakata Mods moved over

PS: Don’t forget you can (and should) do this for your weapons as well.

Other Orangey Gear

This next bit of customization is a little more troublesome to do, but it may be worth the time, effort and expense if the gains are significant enough.  If you are fortunate enough to get your hands on an orange belt (excluding light armor which can be easily bought from the Fleet Comm vendor), then you’ll also need to start shopping for Armoring and Mods that are rank 25.  Unfortunately, these mods only drop in hard mode and higher operations so finding them on the GTN will be hit or miss depending on your server’s population and progression.  The gains vary from class to class, but as you can see in the example below, it can be a decent upgrade over the Rakata Belt.  This little trick can also be done with the orange bracers you buy from the Legacy Vendor, but once again the gains will vary from class to class.

Only the beginning

This is only the tip of the iceberg of what is a constant process.  Players have spent hundreds of thousands of credits just to swap out mods in order to gain a marginal increase in their stats.  I’ve heard of players who will level their armortech/synthweaving to max in order to get the augmented items only to drop it and re-level biochem to get the items in that profession.  There are even some players who will reverse engineer their newly purchased Black Hole gear in hopes of learning the schematic in order to craft the augmented version.  The possibilities are only limited to your budget and time constraints, so get out there and start modding!

Ready check done? Pulling in 3… 2… 1…

A while back I submitted to  thenoobistcolony youtube channel. Every now and then he has something useful up there, like this one that shows you how to send bound mods and armorings to your alts.  The modded item will not only have a level requirement, but a CLASS requirement as well. I.E. Items modded with Willpower will only be useable by Inquisitors/consulars